90% rider,10% bike.

In this context that means nowt, fella! You’re just trotting out a tired old cliche…
🙂

But I’ve been riding long enough to know what good set up is, thanks!

but are you quite sure about this? old habits and all that.

(not having a pop and stuff, and my setups probably as bad as anyone elses 😀 just tyring to play devils advocate!)

we could probably all benefit from an afternoon riding session with TF or the Mojo guys and would be suprised at what these guys tell us. infact even these guys have different opinions on setup.

No, but then with a well designed fork like a Pike, you don’t really ‘feel’ the bottom of the travel.

i can confirm that actually you do, when you clang the lowers off the uppers….

No, but then with a well designed fork like a Pike, you don’t really ‘feel’ the bottom of the travel.

i can confirm that actually you do, when you clang the lowers off the uppers….

Ahh, yes. I’ve done that on my Rebas, but you have to hit them stupidly hard for that to happen, as you have to get through the bump stop first!

This is a pic from the weekend, you can see I’m using all the travel up to the last 5mm-ish on the forks and less than that on the shock. That 5mm on the forks is the bump-stop territory! The shock goes a tiny bit further on a 2-3ft drop off….But otherwise that’s it
🙂

Aww, you can’t really see it on that pic, can you.

Try this

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3656/3323220997_6295531b7e_b.jpg

grumm – Member

Yeah I guess so – but even doing jumps (not massive ones admittedly) I only seem to use about 2/3rds of the travel. I wonder if the stiffness of the springs isn’t completely uniform and I have just got an expecially stiff one?

nah, they’re pretty uniform. I have 2 pikes and a mate with a Pike that had X firm too. I can bottom all of them in the car park. I do hit reasonably big jumps but never bottom them on landing as I’ll only really jump stuff to nice landing transitions (never to flat). I bottom them on take offs.

If it doesn’t actually injure you to ride it, its probably fine.

I like running sus soft.

This is a pic from the weekend, you can see I’m using all the travel up to the last 5mm-ish on the forks and less than that on the shock. That 5mm on the forks is the bump-stop territory! The shock goes a tiny bit further on a 2-3ft drop off….But otherwise that’s it

So they are well set up and NOT too soft for how you ride them.

This is all very interesting.

I too have a Pitch, but a Pitch comp. As my riding developed I found the X-Fusion rear shock had it’s limitations, so I bought a DHX 5.0 Air and put that on, also I found the spring to feel a bit soft and after talking to Tim @ TF tuned he said the stock med spring is only really good for riders upto 12st, so in went a Firm one.

THe first ride at Llandegla last weekend, showed me some benifits of what I’d done.

– The firm spring made the bike feel much more stable, especially into berms where you can now lean on the front of the bike to get more traction, well it felt like that anyway.

– The sock was a revelation, I had to stop to check it was working as the bob I was used to on climbing had gone 😮 , must be that propedal stuff!

– The shock does need further tuning, a bit more bottom out resistance as I was getting full travel pretty easily (never bottomed out completley – but no big hits were taken), but it was the first ride so it’s gonna take a couple more.

– I made the rebound a couple of turns slower over where I had it set with the Med. spring and this made the fork feel just as supple/plush but with the extra stiffness/firmness of the firm spring.

– On other set up features, I fitted wider bars soon after I got the bike, just to try them and they felt great, very confidence inspiring on the downs.

– I had to (being a bit of a tart) fit a matching stem, it was 5mm shorter than the OE one, but I did notice a difference especially on the ups, where the front lifted slightly more easily, I corrected this by dropping the bars 5mm with a smaller spacer under the stem, job done.

SO I’ve come to the comclusion that set up does indeed matter, how far you take it is a personal thing, but you;ve gotta get it right or the bike could feel like a pig.

So they are well set up and NOT too soft for how you ride them.

No, they are too soft. Too much static sag and I’m using full travel too often. I’ve given it a few rides for them to bed in and for me to be sure, but a firm spring will be the only change between now and th PPdS in June
🙂

nah, they’re pretty uniform. I have 2 pikes and a mate with a Pike that had X firm too. I can bottom all of them in the car park. I do hit reasonably big jumps but never bottom them on landing as I’ll only really jump stuff to nice landing transitions (never to flat). I bottom them on take offs.

Hmm well I can’t physically push mine down more than about 2/3rds, even putting all my 16 stone weight on. I’ve never really played with the rebound, is it possible its set too fast and thus the fork is bouncing back up before reaching full travel?

Never had a bike with decent forks before where you could play with such things.

is it possible its set too fast and thus the fork is bouncing back up before reaching full travel?

No, not at all.
Rebound only controlls the SPEED of the rebound, not WHEN it happens. Heavier rides need less (faster) rebound damping than lighter ones as their bodyweight stops the suspension rebounding too quickly. Check how many full turns you have from fully slow to fully fast on the rebound knob and set it about 1/4 of the way from fully fast as a starting point. If the fork feels harsh, add some damping (turn towards slow) if it feels a bit soggy, go the other way. Make small adjustments though!
That’s basically all you need to know.
It’s no good copying someone else’s settings, you need to understand what the adjustments do, then you can work out WHAT to do with them.
😀

think it makes a massive difference, although it depends on the track, riding arround cannock for example as long as the bikes ballanced the suspension can be set up as badly as you like, a rigid bike would cope with 90% of it at full pace.

Currently playing arround with bar height after settling on a 90mm stem and playing arround with higher spring rates.

What’s the metric for determining how good the setup is? If it’s time, i.e. you are a racer then it’s important to get the right setup, and the results are quantifiable. If it’s smiles per mile then it’s far more vague. There’s elements of riding that I’ve enjoyed as much on a ten year old RockShox Dart, V-brake equipped Clockwork as I have on my shiny new Five. I can tell the difference when I change the pressure or rebound in my forks and shock but at the end of the day the performance of the bike is outweighed by the weather, the number of punctures, how I fared against my mates, the number and severity of crashes, how good my lunch was etc, so my setup is limited to a little bit of PRE-RIDE fettling with air pressure, plus ensuring my brakes work well and that I’m comfortably positioned.

I had my concept of correct levels of sag (and therefore spring weights) completely rubbished on a trip to the Sierra’s the year before last. The guide there ran his 150mm bombers at over 50% sag and rear to match – he came from a MX racing background and prefered negative suspension travel (keeping the wheels on the ground) to positive. It certainly seemed to work as he was fast as f3ck and got traction were I was bumping all over the shop. I didn’t see him get much air but the times he did the landings were smooth – I guess his setup wouldn’t be much cop for hucking!

Well I fiddled and fiddled with my Patriot, and now it’s far far better than it was. I dismantled the forks to fettle them; I rotated the bars, changed grips; I moved the saddle fore and aft, I made the tyres tubeless. Of these things probably the fork fettling and riding position made the most difference.

acjim – if you do that you run the risk of grounding the bike on stuff. You do greatly benefit from a lower centre of gravity. For a while on my Patriot I ran the slacker shock mount which gives almost DH angles, but I wound the adjustable fork in more which steepened the angles up but for a lower ride. It made it brilliant in the singletrack but I kept hitting the pedals on climbs.

If you want to get picky, you would be adjusting the bike for different trails/areas/types of riding. A key advantage of adjustable air-sprung forks…

Could you possibly be wrong about your idea of set up and have “luckly” now found the correct “tune” for you? Just an idea.

If you want to get picky, you would be adjusting the bike for different trails/areas/types of riding. A key advantage of adjustable air-sprung forks…

This is why I now have 5 bikes 🙁

This is why I now have 5 bikes

Me too.

Thing is, if I ride the road bike a lot then the Orange 5 seems short and upright so I feel like I want a longer stem and shorter forks. If I ride the Patriot a lot, then the 5 seems too long and stretched out, so I want longer forks. Hmm.